Amanuensis
by something's got to give
Summary: Response to a request for 'Noah!Lavi/Kanda, with Lavi finally having the power to claim Kanda after becoming a Noah.' Lavi / Kanda.
1. Part I

**Note:** since this was a dgmkinkmeme request, expect sexual overtones. There is a second part, which will probably be heavily cut / censored for the purposes of this site. Sorry about that, though I'll be sure to try to provide a link to the original piece. ._.

-

They tell him it's tetanus.

"Wait on it to break the fever. We'll have a man ready to take you home. " His healer is fair-skinned and fair-haired and kindly. And strong, holding Kanda's hand steady, before he's dismissed. "You're young. We chop the arm off, you'll live. Sounds cruel, boy, but there's work t'be had for young ones, and you can use your left. There's plenty o' – boy, can you hear - "

They catch his blade before they break his fall.

Afterwards, when he's conscious again - when he doesn't pay the healers – when "tetanus" is only an ugly word, and worse fee, and Kanda's endured through plague and maggots and a hinterland of ruinous things that truly, deeply _kill_ – afterwards, he's laughing.

Fucking tetanus won't be the end. Born to stand. He knows the ropes: it's white dreams and white thoughts and white fever, and then the road again. He has no passport, his lips keep breaking.

But he's laughing.

-

He's sick, and he's tired, and he's more sick than tired by even dawn, because every bone has a socket, and he intuits how sharp the one blow should be, the one that'd tear him at the seams.

Keep walking.

What they don't tell you in Exorcist School (because there's desperate lust, and confusion, and then you have _ideas_, and Central's too cheap for schooling, least of all schools of thought) is that Innocence is a fucking leech.

What that General of yours, the one you never care for, the one that takes a piss on grandeur and a shit on your dreams – what that General of yours doesn't tell you is that Innocence, all Innocence is parasite. That it's got a vested interest in keeping you well off and alive, for all they bitch and moan and maybe whimper that Lenalee Lee and Allen Walker sported some great exception. The exception was in subtlety, not intent. The exception, and Kanda knows this with every burn on his back and every twitch of his sword hand, is that Innocence should care more about whatever's fucking it up, than you. Innocence is a crazy, sadistic piece of shit, and if it can synchronize with you, however poorly – if it can cling and mess you up in just the right way until you can carry it around, all willing and tender – it'll do it.

Kanda fought an akuma for his demon's spoils: a piece of Innocence that clutched to his nearest wound, tried to synchronize, failed (hullo, Mugen, darling, baby), but got healed in through the brave efforts of a body that never knew when to cede, and less about judgment. Now Kanda's walking around, rather haughtily, if he must say so, with a futile scrap of Innocence dug deep in his back, feeding off his energy, rejected by his system, healing all the same. It's tug-of-war in Kanda's flesh, don't mind the fever, lads. The Innocence doesn't.

This is the fine print. This is the story, and Kanda's burning.

He doesn't need the gracious siege of rural healing fare. He needs a great knife, and a rough hand, and a man too starved to fancy scruples.

Kanda needs a fucking surgeon. He needs a fucking surgeon who'll butcher and blunt and sculpt his bloody shoulder blade out, and the sly piece of once-Innocence with it. He's crossing French lands, he can manage the tongue. He'll find one yet, has to.

(Does not.)

-

He doesn't know when it began, when it scourged, or who assigned him the task of Lavi's capture. Did anyone? Word of Lavi's disappearance –of his sighting by the Rhine, taking notes as two allied teams fell – of the bloody Crown of Thorns idling on his dark head. Words dance a very cautious pace in Kanda's head, and the ghastly fear, the dread of spies.

Once rumour became fact, it went down in a blur, orders over orders over orders, and inquiries, Bookman pressed for interrogation, pressing on his archive sheets himself. Someone holding his hand.

"I don't quite know what to write, Miss Lee. "

"Traitor, " said Kanda, to Lenalee's gasp and the Bookman's silent horror, then to his nod, because it was the truth. The whole truth, and nothing but it.

Kanda's truth, hunting Lavi down the peninsula.

-

It's strange, tracking Lavi around Europe, this Lavi, who is a Bookman's tool, who's been with them months and years and then some; Lavi, who's a Noah now, by some whim of fate that favours Exorcists only very little, of late. Lavi, who fancies Castille these days, wrecking chaos and amber and all the pretty things that one can possibly rip when shoving Kanda against the humble wall of a burning building.

The fever hasn't broken, the strange Innocence is glaring from his back, red and ripe, and between the many shades of pain, Lavi's confessions drive him hysterical. He can't breathe with a Noah's iron fingers clutching his throat, can't think when he's clawing at the arm, which is ashen, all ash, so unseemly for Lavi, and yes, Kanda's laughing -

"Which one are you? Noah of _what_? "

Lavi's omniscience, like his omnipotence distracts him from benevolence. He sighs, endlessly chipper in a bath of blood, sinking closer to bide wet licks of a hollow tongue under Kanda's jaw. "Oh, just marry me, Yuu. You're being very unreasonable. You could be a woman, or at least someone more proper, and I'd love you fine and lawfully, matey. "

"How long have you known about the No- " Kanda chokes on his words, the hold tightens, " – about the Noah in you – "

"Have you any idea what it's like to live with you? " Lavi's chin falls on his shoulder, considering. "You're horrible. I'd hoped you'd be more reasonable at least now, but you're horrible. "

Relentless, really. Kanda's fucking relentless. "How long were you spying? "

Their bodies fit together, the Noah finding the purchase of rhythm in the quick pulse of his hand, now clutching, now making for a fist, quavering easily against Kanda's neck, thumb pushing at his collarbone. The skin breaking – _in_. "Yuu, I've been spying on you all my fucking life. "

The wall crumbles, and Lavi lets go, his prey coughing at his feet like a puddle of ugly, wretched things, black butterflies sinking in too much God damned hubris. Kanda retches, spits his words when he can look up at his Lord and Master.

"Give me something, you piece of shit. " He has to take something to the Order.

Lavi tilts his head, considering, and one word signs his departure, "Sicily. "

-

Kanda tells Komui, Sicily, and they see the assault in three days with forewarning. Tyki Mikk is alone, and bored, and terrible, and the Order's Italian host fails inexplicably.

Kanda's late, not dreadfully late, but late enough that corpses are riotous against the side of every building of the main port, akuma slashing, and dashing, and _living_.

He comes by ship, the earth is new, and he lives the fairytale of a beggar with a purpose in sight, and the candid lost dream of a long night's full rest in hiding.

He can't stand well, the parasitic Innocence invoking a new fit of nausea, can't see well to crush, kill, maim and destroy, and if he is cornered in the dark slip of a very piteous street, then it's nothing but a very poor wager lost expectedly.

And he _is_ cornered, Mugen heavy in his hand, weaker and weaker with every day that the thing in his back lingers steady. Two Innocence pieces can't find the same Master, too cheeky, too greedy, too cumbersome. One must cede, and the parasite is in Kanda, and the equipment is outside, and well, it stands to reason that the Earl should have allies everywhere, in a ridiculous fate and Kanda's body included.

He's rescued by the familiar slick sheen of very red hair and that Godawful voice, and when Lavi puts his pen down, closing the chronicle, every standing akuma dances attendance.

Kanda's pursuers lick at Bookman's hand, and the Exorcist doesn't know the trick, the spell, or the oblivion, but he has seen Skin Bolic and the monster named Mikk, and the Earl himself. A Noah does not do this, a Noah does not reign. This is new. This power. But what - ?

They listen to Lavi, whose serpentine tongue is sibilant to coax monsters; then, pacing forward, to coax Kanda's mouth into submission, eagerly, bloodily, with the hint of dark need. There's breathing to be had, so the parting is quick, and the former Bookman winks at a dishevelled lover, who's given slow leave to report defeat back to headquarters.

Kanda staggers in his walk, Lavi's hand whipping to claim his wrist. Immutably, he massages a bruise laid within the past hour, dragging the white fingers to his Noah's dark face, and enclosing the tips in the aching caress of _that_ tongue. "Yuu, don't hurt what's mine again."

And he backhands Kanda for letting his wound happen.

-

In Greece, it's the bitter coin. He can smell the white drum of opiates before arrival, hates the villagers before the first greeting.

These are the men who sleep like white doves, flocking around bloodied feathers. These are the men who have eaten their young, who've sprawled on their graves, who've bred stardust and fear. These are the men who bring him rosary to kiss, and chicken to bless, and their girls to bed, the young girls and the children, and the fairer boys too.

Kanda's forgotten what it's like to walk islands during a festival, but he is reminded. Painfully. _Reminded_.

He spits on the rosary, kisses the girl, because she is warm, and pleasant, and pleased, and yearning, and his tongue's iron; and he tells them to cook the fucking chicken. With noodles.

They pass him a message. It's parchment, it's writing, it's Sanskrit, which Kanda can barely read, and unwillingly.

It's Lavi.

He wishes Kanda a good evening, and a better festival, and urges him to taste the wine. It's for a goddess, he says. Can't be mean to a lady, can you, Yuu?

Then he tells him, in three pages, about his latest kill. About the Exorcists' latest spontaneous inclination for uncontrived action - for defeat.

Y'all lost the siege in Burgundy, love, but cheer up, _their_ wine sucks. Kanda burns the letter.

The womenfolk tell him after that there's money for him, too, a real purse, with real money, and tickets for the dawn voyage. Their red-haired prince said he should come, they tell him, and Kanda, well, he wants to scream, but - Cheer up, Yuu, the wine's good in all sorts of places.

Kanda takes his rest shivering, wrapped in his fever, drunk, very drunk, and pondering self-dismissal. He is not a traveller, he is indeed sick, there's no surgeon to find, malaise progresses. But he wants Lavi's death, Kanda wants the kill. Wants it when there's no purpose, when there's no use, and no strings, and there's nothing to be done, oh, wants it badly.

He boards the fucking ship.

-

They cross swords by the Alps, when ice is outside of life and death, and Lavi's hammer, which never did him much good beyond a child mind's ambition – his fucking Innocence finally rejects him, gives way. Crumbles.

Lavi looks on, eye white, stricken.

Kanda's knee bends over tattered snow, where blood's married the tip of his sword, stands at the ready. Can't strike. The hammer Innocence dissolves with a dark hiss, and in the silence – in the root of the metaphor of water that bends, but never breaks – Kanda pities the Bookman.

He stands, wavering in his fever, ready to pay his respects and leave, slow, quiet. Lavi slams him in the snow, turns and twists, until he's straddling Kanda's legs, all the skill he's ever learned fastening darling Yuu's wrists under his hands.

"Just give in. One of you can give in, Yuu, what the hell will it cost you? You don't need yourself more than I need you, " Lavi doesn't mind begging, then smacks their mouths together, teeth grating teeth, bloodying up their lips, tongues duelling.

Kanda bites his way out of the kiss, turning his head, flushed in delirium. "I reject you. "

Their glances meet over the discarded hammer. He can't look Lavi in the eye right now. Can't help hearing him, "Fuck you, Yuu, you're not original today. "

The Innocence flinches and flickers for the hour, Lavi's head a heavy ache on Kanda's chest all the while, gauging for a heartbeat. Lying there, lying to each other.

Something breaks there. It's a draw.

-

It's a _date _on Slavic grounds, Kanda's waist caught in the hold of Lavi's arm, as he topples almost over the edge of a sacrifice well. Centuries before him, women 's nails scratched the walls, as they hung to appease the water gods. He's read this much. His hair hangs heavily, the Noah's fingers unbinding the tail over his right shoulder, when he leans to crisscross licks and kisses over Kanda's throat and ear. "Hey, love. "

"Water. " Their glances meet over the fresh gift of remains at the bottom of the well, and Kanda knows instantly that he's late, far too late, that the battle is over, and it was bloodshed already. That they're too few, and he has never been weak, but even weakness forgets him, runs his bones can't handle the voyage, the endless days on sea, on train, or in battle, the weeks and weeks and weeks of teasing, the days on end with that thing in his back. Can't handle losing every fight, everywhere.

The greeting of Lavi's massacres, steps ahead. "Say hi, Yuu. "

"Water. "

"Lovely day we're having. Was just a day for writing."

Kanda's lips are burning. "The water's dirty. "

"Cause it don't rain much. So, about the weather – "

" – the fuck do you wa- "

Violence, all violence. Such a violent streak. Lavi must want to punch him, he supposes. He sounds it, "The fuck what, Yuu? Say _the fuck_ hi. "

Kanda looks on, dead, lost, bleary. Blue. _You've killed every living thing here, haven't you, bastard._ "...head hurts."

"That all?"

His hair is brushed tenderly; Kanda nods.

"Got no questions? " The Bookman chuckles, and the air is childhood dreams again. "Where you been, Lavi, my boy? Idiot? Darling? Well, Yuu, funny you should ask. Been round half the world and if you gotta know, the chocolate in Belgium ain't even that good, course, went down them roads to put out – "

The Order's newest, weakest branch. Kanda squirms in his hold, puppet alive, "I'm going to be sick. "

He _is_ sick, heaving, Lavi holding his hair and slapping his cheeks, until sight returns to him. "Settle, love. Settle."

Kanda says nothing, when his long coat is divested like the raiment of kings, his shirt like a whore's bodice. He's all taken by fever, the cold air a spell. Breathes better in guttural sighs, which may be sobs, perhaps, if only the drowned man could hear. "I don't want to hear it."

"S'all right – " Lavi pulls him closer, invoking a sigh with the slip of smeared hands on his ribs, and Kanda can tell why he's not being turned around, when the Noah's affliction and addiction is with his eyes, and his lips, and all those things becoming his face. Can smell the blood all over his suitor.

"About Belgium, I don't want to fucking hear it – "

"S'all right. "

"Don't want to – "

The world spins in Kanda's head, in his shoulder, where the Innocence' s screaming. Lavi presses cold fingers on his back, nails lingering in a shallow stab. "Doctor soon, my one, my love. Doctor, Doctor, may I help you. "

"Just kill me, you fucking traitor – "

"Play with me: Doctooooooooor! May I help you? "

Silence. Lavi's hand coils suddenly down Kanda's hips, where clever fingers daze the belt aside, the buttons, whispering over his attentive cock in twitches of movement. There is no laughter, "May I help you, Yuu? "

Then it's the dragged ache in Kanda's stomach, the push, and the pull, and the shiver. _Yuu_'s reflection is a tourist guide in brothels, when Lavi's fist plays, the blackmailed arch of Kanda's hips meeting something hard, and maybe strong against the back of his thigh.

Yes, pleasure, Kanda knows pleasure, knows need, knows the slender arms jousting with his need in particular, knows to push back thankfully into Lavi's clothed length, drawing out the hand that tight-tightens on him.

Knows the heavy, dark shape of Arendt in the well, his body still Exorcist even after his passing, just tatters and bones and a kindly face. Knows Lavi killed the man, put him there for Kanda to see, to fuck with him, maybe fuck him all the same against the background of comrades fallen. Of hate. Kanda knows all of this.

Knows everything, with a cracked moan, "Kill me. I'll hunt you down, and tear you to shreds and pieces, if you don't. Don't be a fucking coward."

"But Yuu, dear, I really am trying to help you. " And every slip of his name resonates with a taut jerk of Kanda's erection, Lavi forgetting his lips on the wound in Kanda's back. "Gotta hurt, don't it? Teaches you to see physicians that know nothing about Innocence." A pause. "I could... "

And that pause deafens: it's there, the promise is there. He's Noah, it'd be just _that_ easy to crush Innocence, and for once, for fucking once, for the better. Should be easy. Should be.

"Sorry. " Lavi works his fingers, quicker, stronger, with high-stepped jolts, grasping and shifting, until Kanda comes hotly with a sick little gasp, the proof of it spread over the Noah's yielding hand.

He says nothing, clutching to the well's edge, not when Lavi drags him closer, thrusting hastily, knowingly against his leg, too dry to simulate perfectly, too pure to hurt. The Noah muffles the scream of his completion with a hard bite on Kanda's shoulder, and they are forbearing, forthcoming, and cold – all of them, the excuses: they are men, it is winter, they're campaigning. Kanda's no green boy, these things happen. One must assume them, as an Exorcist, as a man of the world, as a man of his word, as a man who'll keep living. They are men – and Lavi's touch as he twists him, dresses them both, assures Kanda that this body is his, that it is man entirely. They are men, and this is a gentlemen's agreement, though they are enemy gentlemen. And in another world, he is sure, it would happen more graciously, and evenly. He must tell himself so.

Kanda turns willingly to his reflection in the well, maybe to jump with Arendt and bloody end it. The Bookman's arm is there again, at the ready, holding, clinging, pleading. "Sorry, love. "

Lavi's palm trails over the parasite, lets it be, apologizes with bitten lips at the rim, where Kanda's flesh is knitting over foreign Innocence. "Sorry. "

Kanda Yuu does not sob, "It's a world of excuses. " But he wants to.

He has four days to be in France.

-


	2. Part II

**Note:** I tried cutting the rated bits, but there was too much (fairly) relevant dialogue interconnected. Have a warning for some torture, erotica, abuse.

-

It's a small thing to stare down an Orleans Church, stricken, and grey, and lost, and abandoned, because this is folly, this is France, and God's Houses are many. Deo et Domine has scattered them on His forsaken ground like the early, thin coils of a serpent who's never feasted on apples, who maybe wants a bite (ten).

Kanda remembers them: remembers the thin rails that were boys, remembers their nails and their laughter; remembers the dark water of baptism, the sigh and sob as he choked, he couldn't swim then, oh how he learned after; remembers the hand slipping his first Eucharist, the burn and the body and the blood; remembers that he is no Christian anointed, but they made him one.

Lavi's blocking his damned way.

One finger keeps tally of when winter ends, forlorn and quick and idling quite faint on the tip of the Bookman's frostbitten tongue.

Hush, Yuu, he's _thinking. _

"Out of my way," and Kanda pushes him off the road, because he is – proverbially? – not in the mood, each stitch pulled just tight on the rim of his hopes that maybe, maybe if he gets to an inn, a French inn, a pretty inn, with all sorts of kindly girls and ducks and pastries, he'll take his rest and the pain in his back will dull, quicken. Burst out of him like childbirth, if it must, but be over in decadence, over and done.

And what is Lavi? He is a joke, he is the pebble on this poorly paved path, and Kanda's had enough of their pretend fights, because like everything here, it's foliage and skeletal.

Post Scriptum: fuck the Order.

Post Post Scriptum: fuck you, Bookman.

Kanda walks right past him, see how he likes it, "Kill me, or get the hell out."

Lavi stares, then he laughs, which is bitter and sweet and just a little anorexic, spreading his arms like a multifunctional beast, one to grab Kanda by his rotting waist, the other to toss a rusted scalpel in the air until it catches the light.

Catches Kanda's eye.

The Bookman's whisper is narrow, "I come bearing gifts," and they lock eyes briefly, hesitantly – seriously. Lavi nods once, _Well, of course,_ and Kanda, who is white, and stone, and cold, and scuttling last night's half sobbed dreams - Kands cedes the lead.

They have an understanding.

Lavi dares to walk close, back no less turned, dares the first step into the cathedral, where it's dust, shadow upon shadow upon icon upon shadow, and mosaic in place, flimsy topaz tiles telling the tale of thievery. The ornaments are gone, Kanda can spot lacklustre, the gold sheen of paint removed by hungry hands, to be melted. He laughs, because that's so fucking _Christian,_ and he's got an eye ready for the Church's support pillars, and the other for the sword on his belt.

"Activate," and it comes out so slowly, with the dying clamour of a sword that won't heel.

If it fucking _please you._

-

The altar platform, where he is master of all things, pricks Kanda's shins and the ends of his elbow, chews his bone raw, when he lies oh so still, coat quickly discarded, shirt unbuttoned. It's too cold on his belly, everything is, and Kanda wants his sleep. He's spread himself all over.

"Now, Yuu," says Lavi somewhere, far, far away, or maybe close, maybe, "We do need _some_ rules. You do anything very ugly while I'm in over my head getting you out of your mess, and I'll be quite cross. _Quite_ cross."

Kanda presses his cheek to the floor, where there's the sticky mess of something fruit born that broke skin, gathering sensuously on the back of his palms. Wine spilled, he knows, and to his right, seated, when Kanda turns his head, Lavi's drinking.

The Bookman offers the bottle, cheap glint of something red sweeping standstill as they pause. Lavi does smile, "Sorry, matey, ain't done this before. Needed some. Y'know. For good luck. And to get some heart with it. Want the wine? Might help with... "

Kanda shakes his head, and then, as Lavi dissipates the warmth of his gloves, moving _dear Yuu_'s shirt until it's tugging at his neck – then it's questions, and business, and necessities.

"Milk o'the poppy?"

No, he'll not close his eyes with a Noah by.

"You a biter?"

No, he's stuffing his mouth with the sleeve of his coat.

"Screamer?"

No, it's an empty place, fool, it by no means matters.

"Booooooooo," and Kanda spots the ghosting firmness of leather straps, to bind his hands, "We gonna need this?"

N – _hold on._

It throttles him, to speak, "How deep... is it?"

Lavi's whistling echoes past the vague rustling of cotton, and bandage, and his fingers trail without the least bit interest. Courteously, dipping in the dent of his shoulder blade, touching the infection there, the Innocence puss within. Kanda feels, more than hears him. "Hmmmm.... not _very_ deep? But deep. Seems it was busy – what the hell, is it trying to – huh. Fancy. Yeah. Not very deep, but it might... cling."

He is not afraid, when he looks back into Lavi's eyes, the one time before it starts, the once before the ending. Unafraid to say it, because it's a compromise, but he has lost so much already, and he knows the game: move during surgery, your nerves are at stake, and sometimes – just sometimes – they heal very wrong, and maybe it's horrible and damage forever done for your regular bloke, but it's no especial treat for Kanda either. He can't help the twitch of his hands, can't help pain, isn't stone-made.

He nods at the leather, "Use it," and brings his wrists together on his very own, urging the tight clasp tighter when it falls under Lavi's measuring eye. "Too much, love? I'm gonna need you to move'em hands at one point, to see if you've still got hold of your bones proper, so you can't pass out on me. You feel it coming, you tell me to stop, you don't pass out on me."

It begs the question – and Kanda laughs longingly instead, when the Noah takes a second great sip of his wine - if Lavi's gone _nervous._

The first stab of the scalpel burns a _No_ in Kanda's mind.

-

It's endless.

When the blade first sculpts and the Innocence tries to grow roots deeper, revelling in his ribs, Kanda thinks he'll throw up. Lavi stills his workmanship, gives him room to breathe, leaning forward to brush lips with Kanda's pulsing temple.

"Don't be worryin', can't hurt more than this did, ayyyyyyyeeeeeeeep. This? See Yuu? Here?" And in the homogenous rage of all wars waged with the bones in his back, Kanda can feel Lavi's Crown of Thorns under the tips of his yanked bound hands.

"That hurt like _hell_, Yuu. And keeping up the writing when that was going on? A bitch." Lavi chatters enough for two, two and twenty. Kanda breathes. "Now you're probably thinkin', Lavi, my love, why would you _ever_?"

The distraction's all sorts of opprobrious wrongs, and the scalpel slips again, slips and hardens where tendon meets tendon. "But how could I not? Another Bookman won't be going through this, what're the odds? You kidding me? Had to be written– fuck you, don't make me."

A quick bolt of soreness when Kanda's tissue sutures against the false Innocence again, slick like black oil and libertine love, clashing with the mangled steel of a surgeon's weapon. Lavi's arguing with the Innocence, something reassures Kanda, and that something may still be the blindness of conscious pain.

Tch. Sure, it hurts. It hurts too much to scream, and too much to think, and the cacophony of sound, God, but he misses his voice, Kanda misses it. Has no question, no vexed interest, has nothing at all but the little blanks where his strategy should be. "How... long...did it take to... ?"

Lavi catches on, goes about his work and his words willingly. "Pfffffffffft, lemme think. Let's see... ain't it cute when we're talking all sweet like this, Yuu? Now why d'you have to make it so hard all the damn time, and we can't be talking more like this, huh? I'm loving the quality time here."

"How...long... "

"Shhhhhhhhh. Fine, fine. Figures you'd be cheeky, "and that next stab may well rob Kanda of his mind, "Thirteen days. Thought it was some kinda symbolic number'n'all, thirteen days, thirteen Noah, twelve apostles and Jesus and the first Order and hell. But then I remembered about the Fourteenth – and how is Allen, by the way? Happy? Sparkling? I miss hearing him laugh, Yuu, swear to God, no one laughs as honest as that fellow. Yeah, the Fourteenth screwed up the math. What can you do?"

The false Innocence bleeds in the paper thin layers of Kanda's emaciated soul, screams to unwind his body in a groundwork of madness.

"What."

_Did you know?_

"Can."

_And the first dagger you had, boy, was it quick like this, was it a graveyard thief?_

"You."

_Did it spit fire, Kanda, did you cut and did you corner, did you hold it very close, and gave it your first blood, because you're a fool, little boy, you don't unsheathe without blood spilling, that's ill done by your blade, so now you'll prick your thumb. Did you do it and say, I -_

"Do."

- _I do believe in breaking, I do, I do. _

"Yuu? No, really, what can you do?"

Nothing, and Kanda's eyes lock with the seraphim above, with the lily engraved cherubs by the corner of the ceiling.

There's nothing to be done.

And then it's over.

-

He wakes up an oath-breaker, draped over the single sofa of a confessional, where the priests must've sat to impart penitence. There's a shiver, where pain should have been, and the bold strain of bandages commits the hole in his back to memory. There must be snow outside, everything is cold.

"Told you not to pass out on me, didn't I?" Lavi's mouth is muffled on the bloodied mess of Kanda's lap, nibbling softly at still tied swordsman's hands and the heat of their calluses. Drunk, whispering, tired -

_Confessing,_ and Kanda wants to scream again.

"No need to thank me, Yuu."

Kanda won't. Kanda's venality has ended with the loss of that Innocence, with the silver of its contagion now balanced against Lavi's thigh, a bitter sycamore dream flashing the neighbouring scalpel.

Lavi's bottle is lost, though Kanda's got very little clue of how long he was out, since the blood on him had the time to dry. It itches.

The Noah – he is dark and whole now, there is no question – settles at kinder ease on his knees, rests his head fully. Heavily. "Gonna be ugly in Aachen, love. Even brought myself an umbrella, you know? For all the blood and meat and -sounds cruel, but you don't want that shit on your papers."

Aachen. What's Aach-

The capital city, the French king's own dome, the parting dot on German borders where Kanda's orders had spelled a warning, _Mind the akuma influx, they might head there._

"No Exorcist's walking out. Too many o'them darlings."

_They'll head there. The akuma will. _

"Could be there's some trump card Central's holding, but I doubt it til I see it – you can't predict everything, Yuu, not even Bookmen can. It's why we go on site. It's a slaughterhouse either way, and I'm hearing the fat man let on word that he's got some people there, so I'm guessing the Order's gonna toughen ranks. You're too close by not to get the orders to give a hand."

Lavi's teeth rake sharply against Kanda's thumbs. He looks down in disaster. "Hear me, Yuu?" And his green-gold eye superposes obsession with infraction, "You wouldn't walk out."

But he'd crawl.

It's all a blur after.

Lavi tightens the chord of the wrist-bind in a moment, clutches the scalpel and slashes his palms, where years of intentions have eaten the dead, scryed them, made their tombs.

Kanda looks on warily, doesn't matter, it'll heal. He's done well, Lavi, took what needed taking, this will heal, oh, it will heal, let him cut, let him, he stripped away the irksome thing of an Innocence that wouldn't heal, and –

- and then Lavi puts the scalpel down, Kanda thrumming a yell that bleeds his back more, sears his lungs –

"No – "

"So I started thinking. Figured, Well, what if he doesn't get'em orders, and I'm fretting for shit and giggles? Could be they don't find you to pass'em on, but that's a pretty hefty risk, and I ain't taking it. Sorry."

- and then Lavi takes the Innocence –

"Don't – no - "

"I thought, Take'im with you, Lavi ol'boy, make sure he don't get killed, simple as that. Easy. Except I saw the numbers of akuma incoming, and uhhh, well, I'm good, Yuu, so help me, I'm good. But I can't be writing _and_ keeping you in check, you're one hell of a hassle."

- and he sprinkles a half over each open gash on Kanda's torn palms -

"Look at me – _Lavi, don't_ – "

"So I said, Lead'im on, drag'im to Normandy, he'll lose touch of everything. He'll be late. But then, you would've got your orders somehow, and that woulda sucked, wouldn't have it? Me, not thinking about it, and you prancing around with your mission brief, no, can't have it."

- and he forces Kanda's fists close, nails digging deep, forces the parasite Innocence to imbue fast and faster -

"Then I thought, Put'im in a coma. Takes days even for you to heal off that, but problem is, I do that? I lose track of you. No telling where you go after, and Yuu. Yuu? Are you listening? Yuu, I really can't lose track of you now. You can't fight like this, so you know, but you don't go."

- and he licks the edge of Kanda's lids, where tears won't be bloodied, or shed.

"Said, No need to thank me, Yuu."

-

Kanda's _slight_ fit– which involves more hitting, more writhing, more screaming, and more danger, more failed, utterly failed attempts to use his sword, because Mugen knows, Mugen _feels_ the clash of foreign Innocence even closer now – that little darling moment and love and rapture renders the confessional unusable, and Lavi in a rage.

"Now listen here, Yuu, and listen bloody well. You've got a stunning face, you really do- "

"I'll claw it the fuck off!"

"- but I've had better. And you put up a fight – " Which is another pittance Lavi will grant, the first allowance being silent permission for Kanda to slam him against the Church's standing walls. Because Kanda Yuu's no one's little bitch, but he's got less energy standing than a puppy. Needs to bide time before Mugen's one spell, before his prayer when he entered. Needs to keep living, Lavi's voice an apology begging signature, "I've had feistier. And hate to say it, it's always hard when it's the people you love – so they tell me – but your personality, matey? It fucking sucks. If we were married – and the offer still stands, got the place just for you, you know – if we were married, I'd slap you every single damn day over that mouth, til you'd lose those ¬wretched teeth and you'd learn to shut it."

Somewhere along the line, the bind on Kanda's wrists breaks, for the little beastly good it'll do him, since he can't knit his fingers into a punch with his palms oozing pain and the _fucking fever again._ He can slap, though, he can slap, and he can tear, and if he scratches Lavi's eye out, he'll die a happy man.

"Don't look at me like that." Lavi twists them around, landing Kanda against the subtle bookcase with prayer scrolls, every edge and every corner stabbing at his back. Lavi sighs his endless patience, "I'd never do that to a woman. You have to be nice to women, Yuu. And I'd stop hitting you after some time, I'd just fill your mouth proper, cause then you couldn't bite. Would you like that? Know how it's done? A bit hard with the swallowing the first ten times or so, but you get around that by spitting, or just showing some fucking grace, then you get the hang of it, and. Well."

It's cold again, very cold and too sudden, and snow's falling past the window now. Kanda can see it - calms a little, when his knees tremble, breaking his poise. His hair's everywhere, no matter how much Lavi brushes strands off his face. The bracelet broke, you fool. Stop laughing.

The Noah doesn't, "So why me, you're asking, except you never fucking do, do you? You just take it as it comes. Half the world's men would be screaming bloody murder, or _sodomy_, if things got hands on, and what d'you do? You're one hell of a sport, Yuu, bless you. You take it as it comes, not one single question that might be, you know, relevant to your hopeless interests. I'm making a whore out of you, you mutt -"

_But not a bitch. _

" - except what's a whore with a single customer? Ain't a concubine, those get swapped after a while. Not doing that, sorry. The whole sharing thing? Overrated. Last season. Kind of bourgeoisie, we're aiming for noblesse oblige. Do you even know what I'm talking about? No? Fancy. But suppose you had sense, Kanda Yuu, and so you're asking – "

Kanda tip-toes, until their glances meet, forward, steady, same level and same brink of madness, "Why... me...?"

"There's a boy." The Bookman laps at his nose slowly, all chipped and smiles. "Why you? Why _not_? Care to beg for an answer? Whimper some? At least a little come hither? Oh, c'mon, Yuu, show some initiative. You can't be bringing _just_ the Innocence to the marriage bed."

He wants a bed now, he wants his French inn again so badly. Kanda kisses his captor with the blunt force of a switch, rough and deep and taking Lavi's tongue in with a press of hips' worth of hinted invitation. Then he bites down, bites down so hard and quick that the spit on their chins comes all blood, and mixed, when Lavi scrapes his fingers down the hole in Kanda's back to break free once his lover's panting his pain.

"Oh, that's nice. Good one, Yuu. I'mma remember that," the Noah winks, though every other word is a spit to the side, blood reaped.

"I'll tell you why," And Lavi does, "since you ask real nice." Though Kanda really, truly didn't. "See, when I was a little boy – don't roll your eyes, love, I don't forget requests. Anything, really. Go with the analogy, Yuu, you can do it. So when I was a little boy, I had me a dog. Puppy, really. Good dog, had to lose'im after I dropped that persona – long story. Had to lose'im after some four months. But he was a really good dog, Yuu, honest, he was. Licked my hand and everything." He presses his hand to Kanda's lips, expectant – drags it away before the first bite. Laughs more. Always laughing. "So you know, there's nothing like someone living for you and just you and you entirely. And some people do that, think o'Lena. She'll do it in a snap. And then there're the selfish people, and they don't do it at all. Ever."

Ever, ever, ever, ever. Kanda stops struggling. It's over.

Lavi's mad hiss in his ear – _it's over._ "Never seen someone as selfish as you, Yuu. Never seen someone burning himself inside and out, you know. Like there's no one else in the fucking world. Like you really, really, really don't need anyone to put yourself down. And I've seen me suicidal folk, it's all the same, but no, no, here's Yuu, here's Yuu wanting to live, wantin' it kinda bad, I mean. If we're talking obsession. But here's Yuu killing every bit of himself to keep living." Not like this. "Someone stripping down his very person just to keep on going for that one purpose."

Not like _this_.

"That's..." The Noah watches impassively behind a curtain of read, his bandanna long lost to slaps and seizure. It suits him, a man without, it suits him to look less the Exorcist and more the beggar. He reclines Kanda against the wall, closer, sweeps past the altar, tilts him against the icons. "That's deep. Touched me in the heart, Yuu. Swear it did."

Bookmen have no hearts.

"And I figured, I want to move this person's axis, this fucking selfish, selfish, selfish bastard's whole being til he hates me absolutely, or loves me absolutely. We all need pet projects. And you're following me around like my dog did, these days. Strange, I think I liked him." The droll drum of Lavi's mouth moving, of snarled repudiations and a puzzle deep. Kanda wonders if he'll be whole again. If something, something new and kindly will pull him together, once the Bookman is done preaching. "I don't know if I like you, Yuu, and I don't know if I'd normally even fuck you right now. You got too skinny. I like'em light, but not _this_ skinny. I mean, for hell's sake, look at this."

Kanda's boniest hand, the worst in many years, stumbles up in a hold heavy and a scrutiny run hoarse. Lavi fixes his thumb on the wrist, where the bones jut, pinning it by precious Yuu's face, where he'll turn his head to see the –

"Is this pretty? No, it's not pretty. We're doing something about that later, right?"

- see the walls coming together under Mugen's early swarm, bless precaution, bless his friction. Bless it, and bless Lavi too, bless his penchant for long words and a settlement of hate. Bless him for looking closer to Kanda's lips, smirking, "You know, Yuu, I can be selfish too. And I don't like you. And I might not fuck you. But I do love you. Promise. Woof?"

No answer.

No answer at all.

Never.

And it's game on again, run little deer, the wolves are coming close; because Kanda's glance must have weighed down the pillars; because Lavi can tell. The Noah looks for hunt and traces with a Bookman's eye, shaking his head when alabaster flickers back, when something dark and very small trickles on fine ceiling.

There's a silence there. It's so long, Kanda holds his breath, close and dark, like chocolate spelling a secret.

Then Lavi laughs, laughs so hard, he chokes, "You went and put them there, didn't you? After all my trouble, Yuu, you bastard."

His hand stays on Kanda's hip. Then he leans in, snakes his bleeding tongue in _Yuu-the-Bastard_'s mouth all sore and vengeful, and tired teeth, "Well, death do us part, love."

Kanda wants to laugh along -

Kaichu. _Ichigen. _

- and the Church comes down on them.

-

In the aftermath, he's an atheist.

He doesn't believe in hugs, Lavi's arms crushing the dying, living, torn breath from his broken bird bones with their marrow rusting pale. Rubble everywhere, pillars strained, but holding, the ceiling in tesserae. The altar's bleeding not-gold and tapestry.

He breaks the reality of living silence. "How...?"

Lavi's Noah. It isn't Bonds, they've had bonds already. The twins, he's heard about them, heard about Cross and Walker and their debts and their ways. It's not bonds, but it's keeping the bonds of real things together, it's spoiled the perfect thing that was Kanda's trump, it can't have been something else, it - _What the hell is it._

"Regret," says Lavi, with a bite to Kanda's jaw, because he can read fucking minds again. "It's not complicated. Every Noah, every single one, they're connected to choice. The desire for choice, the dream. The connection to it, the bond. What happens when you don't get it? Wrath. What about when you do? Pleasure. What if you have it and lose it, then?"

The akuma drawn to a Noah, then. The akuma, who in themselves are cold loathing, and despair, and fear. The akuma, seeking counsel with their own. The walls and pillars, regretting rupture – lifeless things regretting and lapsing time to recover. Lavi's wounds regretting the spilled blood, coming together and giving him the time to fucking write during battles – as his Crown of Thornes shone. Miranda Lotto would clap her praises.

Confessionals. Penitence. What the fuck. What the fuck, Bookman.

Lavi's laughing - "You look like shit, Yuu."- then pulling him together – _no, you can't be that "something,"no_ - against another wall, where the portrait of the Virgin is a decade of disgrace in dust and speckle. Kanda's back screams, Kanda's head as it knocks the bowls of soft candles. The Noah presses into him to kiss over his shoulder, licking the icon, first Madonna's hands, then her wrist, then her lips, like a very good Christian come to rape on a Sunday.

"Amen," says Lavi, and drags Kanda's hand to wave the cross sign for him – the hand that won't close. "Yuu, you should be more reverent. Aren't you glad God loves you like this?"

Then that traitor's mouth is on his, and Kanda's very faint, until the Exorcist – Noah - _Bookman_'s tongue withdraws, licking away the black rot of his lips with tattoos in white heat and saliva.

"In sickness and in health -" Lavi drops to a knee, wraps his hand around Kanda's cock when it's made free from his clothing, fists slowly, gently, braiding kisses on ribs whose dents must clash with his teeth. "Yuu, but God does love you."

Kanda looks once at his hands, and he can't look away. Truly, softly, _regrettably_ over.

The parasite Innocence's laying bloody eggs, or eating at his flesh, doing something, anything, because Kanda can't pull his fingers together, Kanda can't think to hold his sword, maybe never again, Kanda's useless, Kanda can't think again, can't reason, his hands, his _hands_, can't – "Can't. Breathe."– oh God, but he's meant for Kabuki now, worse than a woman, can't hold his sword, _regrettably_, his hands –

Lavi plants them over the red hair Kanda can't even feel, haste muzzling him. "Hold on."

Then he has Kanda's cock in his mouth, hot and rough and quick, and maybe studied, pricking with tongue and lips and teeth and the little blunt shards of crested meat, or muscle, or membrane, or whatever-the-fuck-there-is that lends Lavi the ease to take him in, take him mostly all in, and slowly.

There is too much suction, too little tug, and Kanda's hips snap wretchedly forward with a hiss, the back of his head plastered to paint and icon. Too much suction, too little tug – but not enough for a living corpse lying still, cooling. Lavi relents before Kanda can end it, and come, and spill himself greedily, and honestly - and black out as is his due, because so much exertion on such a frail frame, he knows what would come of it. Kanda knows, and Kanda wants the sleep.

"Tastes gross," whispers Lavi into his ear, licking away at his lips, vaguely inked with Kanda's moisture.

"It's not sweet. Sweet like – hmmm. R'member that name, love?" Kanda's too boneless to remember his own name. 'Love,' perhaps, 'Handless love, Useless-without-a-Sword-love,' because fixation is fixation, and Lavi's mouth is good, very good indeed, but he has some obsessing to do. He jerks, Lavi holds him in place, and when it's time for hysterics, the slap's forthcoming.

"Skin. Name was Skin," Lavi says, knuckles still twitching when he crosses Kanda's arms behind his back, so there's no staring. There is no rope, there is no question, there is no staring.

"Sorry," says the beast, says the barbarian, says the fucking _Bookman_ after what is a very long pause, if only because Kanda's face shows some signs of recovery, "He _was_ family. Sorry."

When last Kanda wept, he was three and folly, three and speared by the black tipped wing of a lead angel on another's tomb.

It left a mark.

There will be no mark now, he knows; if he lives, there will be nothing, and he will be reborn, and pure. No mark, and no solemn grace. He wants the slap to mar somehow.

Lavi stirs him again. "He left records. Well, writing. Seems he had a lot on his chest, our Skinny-Skin-Skin." _Our_ Skin. "Would you like to read them? You should read them, Yuu." Lavi's all pack o'bones as he pushes Kanda gently backwards, sharp and jutting against Kanda's bruise of a raw cheek, somehow tall and somehow regal, rubbing their foreheads together. Breathing. Breathing, heavily. And he whispers, "Aren't you tired yet?"

Kanda leans, takes that tongue back in and bites it til it bleeds, because some part of him is calcium, magnesium, sodium too - because he needs iron. Because it's fucking sick to console the enemy like this, it's sick to go on for two, but he's an Exorcist, demons ride on his tail. He can't help it.

There's too much silence, so the bone of Kanda's shoulder cracks. Lavi peers intently. "I do love you."

It's an afterthought. The Noah's cat-eye laughs, where the man forgets himself.

Their cocks rub together when they come close again, and the cloth, and the vein, and the rein. Reign supreme. Lavi bends until he's burning sweet wet nothings in Kanda's ear, "Bookman said – don't move like that, Yuu, you're not helping – Bookman said to send him my records, so we could archive together. Fancy, a Bookman in each camp. He didn't like it at first."

_Bookman knew all along._ Kanda stares, and Lavi soothes his hands, stroking his wrists. It's war, traitors need weeding. There's no time for courts martial, and Bookmen gainsay formal jurisdiction. There's only one answer, God bless them. God spare them.

"If you kill him," And now Lavi's laving every one of Kanda's fingers with a cautious, clean tongue, that's too hot on the knuckles, too heavy. "If you kill him, I'll cut your hands off. Our nifty trick here, now? It'll go away. But Mugen's useless without your hands, love. You can't regenerate. Be reasonable, I don't mind a cripple. Think."

Kanda's lips are too chapped, too forlorn. Immutable Lavi wets them for him, but he can't look anymore. Faint, he wants water. Too faint. "I can't. Can't -" _Can't breathe_. "I can't think."

"Don't try." Lavi listens. The alliteration makes it very memorable, in a cobweb of conspiratorial confidences, and Kanda knows this, because he has read things, very many things, where the hero is wretched, his life sucks, and then he dies.

Kanda wishes Lavi'd suck on him, or die, but Lavi's biting his collarbone instead.

"Yuu. I have cravings. Urges. I want. I want, you know. I want to mark you with hands and teeth and I want to kill you." A Noah pauses to consider at the most awkward moments. This Noah. Lavi. _This._ "Very badly. There isn't a moment when I don't want to kill you very badly."

"Kill… me…? Why...?" The notion's too strange when Kanda's bones blend in the gold-scribbled wall, the Holy Mother kissing his shoulder. If he looks down, he'll find the birds and the bees and the teasing rubble of spessartine glass. He is not going to hell.

"Don't mess around," snaps Lavi, because sometimes he can violate Kanda's thoughts, and sometimes because he's just that terrible. "If you're doing something, don't do it half way through, right? Right?" He's got Kanda's chin in hands, clenching tight. Staring. "Look at me when I'm talking. A man like you knows nothing about real obsession."

Dark fingers glare on Kanda's chest first, up his throat, strangling, tight, tighter. The string that pulls won't come undone, so red hair sweeps down Kanda's navel, Noah lips coy. "You've never wanted something this bad."

"You..." Fever speaks on Kanda's lips. Again. Oh, his hands. "Don't know anything."

"That so?" Movement. It must be hard, to mutter as Lavi does, around a nipple tersely, and suckling as children do - if only Kanda were a woman, so there should be pity. "Don't lie. Bled for it, sure. Bet you've never fucking _lived_ for it, Yuu."

Profanity is new from this body. Not this person, the Noah Lavi never was, but this body. This body, all Lavi, all but nailing iron rods where his fingers go, pinning Kanda to the icon and the wall, settling preciously between his legs. Leaving bare room for his cock alone, sliding trousers halfway down his hips, until Kanda can feel their zipper's bite on the inside of his thighs. Grasping. God forbid he should take a whore without his clothing, God forbid he should leave Kanda some breath, God forbid he should turn this into something human, God forbid it should not hurt, God forbid, God agree, God -

_God, where are you. _

"Yuu."

One last glance.

"Forgive him, Father, for he has sinned," Lavi singsongs, then shoves him in the wall some more, holds Kanda's legs steady, and ready, thumbs the ridge of his hip, presses slowly. His cock is surprisingly honest, Kanda thinks, and he wants it to happen now: wants the bind and the body, wants that – that – _thing_, wants it done and over with, so he can forget his limbs. Wants the last breath that catches when Lavi does thrust into him, because it's difficult, and laboured, and Kanda's body rejects the heat of intrusion with tearing born from the slow grind of the Noah's hips, rock on rock, dear, rock on pieces.

Lavi catches Kanda's scream in his mouth, stills himself, looks the icon in its fairytale eye.

"Thou art all fair, my love, there is no spot in thee," and he breathes.

There's too much sacrilege. Kanda's no Christian, never could draw a fish, and he wants a word that isn't Scripture. Wants Lavi to shut the fuck up – and fuck him, maybe, long as it's all over.

Wants to rile him.

"Doesn't hurt," Kanda says, and he's grinning. Hurts a bitch. No more than other wounds, but Kanda's got plenty, the fever's eating him like vice –

Sin?

Oh, he has sinned so much, Lord, there is blood on his hands, there is blood on his cheek, there is blood quaked and waking, on his thighs, on his lips, on the black of his sword. There is blind blood and pallor. (He can't move.)

Can't speak all proper. Sinking against the wall. "...doesssssss... unnn't... huuu... hu..."

"Hurt?" Lavi lifts his legs kindly, propping him up by the caught curve of his ass, to settle in deeper. Strike deeper. Kanda's doll arms hang limply on each side, like a dead lover's cruel address, blood sticking somewhere in the back of his head. It's everywhere else.

Kanda moans it, "Doesn't... huh... hu... hurt. God."

"Beg."

"Doesn't... _God_..."

"Not for God." He forces himself in deeper. "Beg."

There are no condolences, Lavi biting the lobe of his ear, suckling, bringing it into his mouth, cradling it gently with the muscle ridge of his tongue, warm, wet, silk, deep, rinse, repeat. _Baby_. "Brought His house down, matey. He's not helping you tonight."

It occurs to Kanda that he doesn't want this.

"Too dr... duh...ra..." His _everything_ is torn.

"Dry?"

Kanda nods –

- and Lavi thrusts harder. "Deal with it."

Scream, dove, scream some more tonight, keep moving, but scream for him, keep pushing, but scream for him, keep fucking back, but scream for him, bleeding, but scream his God damned ear off, Amen.

"I hate." Kanda can't. There is a thought and a reason and abandon, and he _can't_. Say it. "I hate."He bites down, moans, pushes back and pulls and maybe moans again, reaches up to smear his rotting hand against Lavi's forehead, covering the Crown of Thorns, until little red beads fall to puncture his sighs. "I _hate_."

Soft slash of slipped lips. Lavi licks the pooling blood away. "I know. I love you." He _moves_ inside, until Kanda does gasp, until Lavi talks faster to cover it. "I can't help you."

The next thrusts are savage, they trail like little inklings through salt and sweat, pleasure mounting, twisting against itself, Kanda shutting his eyes. He jerks, he does scream, it doesn't matter, there's no pride. Seeing makes him sick, Lavi pushing him backwards, there's a wall, you fool, there's nowhere to go, there's a fucking wall and a fucking icon and you're fucking against it. Lavi's hold undoing him, Lavi's hips and Lavi's hand on his cock, Kanda arching, that vein and that flesh, and the dull rasps on what he can only suppose is the ungodly whore's miracle of a prostrate.

"I – I hate _you_," Kanda _spits_, and there's the real trickle of very real white on Lavi's dream of a darken skin, until the Bookman drives forward, harder, and faster, and painfully hating, fisting a hand in Kanda's hair to draw him close, staring. _Daring._

"I hate you," Kanda bites again, but he does understand, gorgeous creature that he is, leaning in to lick back what saliva he's given, slowly, incautiously, with the earlier reverence and the later haste, because damn you, damn you, his eyes blink darkness, damn you, his fever, damn you, stop pounding. Don't. Their hips grind, grind, _move_.

Lavi hits the solid core of something – something _sweet_ – and Kanda wants that slap again now, deserves it, shackles his legs tightly around a willing waist, fucking himself on the Bookman's cock, which is a difference. Because he doesn't want this, but he'll give as good as he gets, he's no victim, he refuses. He's no victim. We're a kingdom of liars here, my dear, tell the Emperor his clothing's tight. Kanda's is. Kanda's has ripped to shreds and pieces, but, _Do what you want, I'll-_

"I'll _kill you_," it comes out strangled, but Kanda covets the sound, the ragged echo of sting in his innards. "I'll tear your... heart out and – tch... – and your liver – and... ah- and..."

Lavi grins wildly and chokes on wordless seconds of raw stillness, chokes, but thrusts some more, viciously, with a seeming eye for focus, and Kanda's stirring, and pain, true pain, like lovers are wont. The Noah took it all in earlier, his throat must be good. Kanda does moan, throat must be very good, taste good too - he bites at the column of the Bookman's neck, and Lavi slapd him again with the back of a hand , wasting momentum, and balance because Kanda's drawn blood.

They slip a little, just a little bit, the Virgin's hand over Kanda's head in blessing, and now Lavi reaches to kiss the tips of her fingers. The evening is too cool for viridian, too cool and too bleak, and there's enough ache in Kanda for stirring and shiver.

"Kill me later," Lavi coos, and warms him with everything that he is. Keeps moving. Chaffing, until the blood boils deep, until it's movement, move, moving, moving, coming, something, anything, And then it's every insult Kanda can think of, and the words, and the gasps, and the moan in between, "Noah. Motherfucking - Bookman. Da.. damn... Traitor. Deserter. Kill- kill you. Traitor. _Traitor_ -"

The scream dies in saliva, Lavi's hiss in his ear, "Do love you – "

- and if Kanda's coming, let him, drown him, useless, pretty, kindly doll, and inside, he comes suddenly, and deeply, and unromantically, coating Lavi's hand quickly, that hand that moves until he's done, milking the last of it, and the last of him, and the last of his moans. Kanda melts, too much a soiled rag as Lavi keeps pushing, and tearing, and fucking between groans, "Love you," and "Love you," and "Love –" and "Lo – " and "You... Yuu... " and climaxing shortly, somewhat beautiful, and strange to Kanda's eyes in his release.

Afterwards, it's so silent.

Afterwards, there's nothing but the raging shell of someone's ache (someone else, not Kanda, someone new and torn and maybe different, wearing the open shreds of his once face) and his body's duplicity.

Lavi's legs give in, and they slide down in full, Kanda straddling his lap gently, like a precocious child cradled in vain, weakly, wetly, between welts.

Too silent.

Kanda kisses him, sickened, and sickening, and hearing Lavi's breath when it catches. Hearing something, when the Noah's skin goes pale, so very pale that Kanda's semen on those ink-driven hands is almost fitting.

Silent again.

It sends Lavi laughing. "Wedded'n'bedded, that how it goes, Yuu? We gone done it. And I'm so young."

He's so young. Kanda could cry, Lavi's so young. They're both very young, and very bloodied, and breathing, and raw.

Lavi pulls out, casting his _lover_ aside.

And then it's all the noise of Kanda retching, coming ill and undone.

(Redux times infinity plus one.)

-

He wakes up (he's always waking up), slithering like a snake in slick slime, arms the white fairy things that break like cobwebs, with a smear, arms spread.

He can't die.

He can't die here.

He's burning again.

Lavi knots the thin bitten ends of a half dream and his ugliest scar, no, scarf, around Kanda's neck. It's strangling, Kanda can't really see, it's around his throat and hot and heavy, it's the Ark again, the Ark where stone keeps falling, the Ark where everything's falling, where he can't breathe, the Ark, where he's dead, where they bury him, where Lavi won't stop it with the pretty little bows, as if Kanda's a precious little gift, now thoroughly unwrapped and very unchaste and all the better for giving.

Passing on.

Kanda wants to –

"Shhhhhhhhhhhhh, Yuu," Lavi's fingers on the white of his lips. He leaves the scarf alone. "Only thought t'give you a gift."

- Kanda did scream.

He is the pain of every breath, shallow, abating, the catalyst of new days and kingmaking. Stillborn. Drenched in his stupor. His body doesn't know him. He knows it – knows that the sticky white sinking down is a paragon of very great and inconceivable virtue that never has caressed his thigh, and never would. Knows that was in _another man_ once, and it's wrecking his insides now, his passage, _his_.

Scream, scream, little devil machine.

He says, and it's a real confession, it's to pull Lavi off and writing and away, get the hell away, move, he says, "I've died once."

And what he wants to say is, "I hate you, I hate you, we're losing this fucking war. I hate you."

The Bookman tucks him in new clothing, where from, fuck if Kanda can tell, tucks him in and cleans him well, sinks Mugen tightly in his belt, with money and directions, for a physician who'll handle –

Kanda's hands shine like struck steel and amber bent with their Innocence prize.

- who'll handle _it_, as if Kanda's some woman who's taken with child after a negligent tryst.

"Don't look at me like that, Yuu, you'll make me gouge your eyes out."

It's very Noah of Lavi to still leave his scarf behind.

-

It's more Exorcist of Kanda to wait until he's gone – to bite, raw deep into the blood-sluicing spoiled meat of his palms, to dig the Innocence out with his bare teeth, as if he's wanton, newborn, animal raw.

Screaming.

Spitting the Innocence aside, bit by God damned bit, the white of it sick, because the lesson, children – and he pulls himself up, torn, and lead and limp too heavy – the lesson is that if something _regrettably_ likes you, it'll wear you down until you break.

Kanda hates fairytales.

It's a five day walk to Aachen, three days til things go down.

His hands'll heal, Mugen's still with him.

He'll run.

-

**Notes:** ...was unexpectedly long. The sad part is, it was begging for a bit more to wrap everything up, but I used some self-restraint.

"Thou art all fair, my love, there is no spot in thee" - Song of Solomon 4:7

I think the other short Biblical citations are recognizable.

If the minor Church crash seemed to come out of the blue (I think it did) - it's what Kanda worked on when he walked into the Cathedral. He activated Mugen, and set the bugs to work on the support pillars. If it came to a showdown that he lost, he could just have the building crash down. Odds are, unless you're Skin, you're not making it alive. The odds failed.

This meets a few "first"s for me: first time writing romance, let alone rated romance; first time finishing a multi-part fic in nine years; first time writing a piece, period, in… what, two years? And definitely first time writing -man fanfic. Sorry if the overall was subpar ._.


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